Recovering gold from 250kg of CPUs

[Marcin]

Have you seen that ? :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Miw6F48VtWk

Macabre for the environment in my opinion

[Mr.Scott]

Can't watch. Terrible waste of good collectible processors.

[CPUShack]

Probably bad for his health too

[crazybubba64]

952 grams of "gold"

That at spot price today would be ~$56k

Not sure what condition the chips were bought in (probably horrendously mangled/broken)

Not sure if there was anything rare.

Lets do some guesstimates


~250kg (551lbs) total of all CPUs

Most yards / refiners will categorize ceramic CPUs:

(these prices are guesstimates and are based on prices from memory of around a year or so ago, so probably super outdated with the crazy metals price shifts)

Pentium Pro / gold cap intel ~$100/lb
Original Pentium ~$70/lb
Intel 486/386 ~$90/lb
Intel i960 ceramic ~$80/lb (This may be way off)
Gold top or bottom misc ceramic ~$60/lb
gold top and bottom misc ceramic ~$80/lb
AMD ceramic no IHS ~$40/lb
AMD 486 / 386 (includes IBM/TI/ST/Cyrix 486/386) ~$60/lb
DMD/DLP Ceramic ~$50/lb? (maybe more or less, didn't ever see enough of these)

The author of the video was kind enough to give a basic breakdown of the chips processed:

AMD - 67kg (147lb)
Intel CPU - 70kg (154lb)
Pro + 486 + Cyrix + 386 - 62kg (136lb)
DMD/DLP ceramic - 14kg (30lb)
other - 41kg (90lb)

Lets assume the AMDs are all "AMD ceramic" as that is what they appear to be in the video. So he likely paid something in the ballpark of ~$5.8k give or take 1k for that batch. (again assuming my prices from memory, which may have shifted A LOT)

"Intel CPU" is super vague, so lets assume this encompasses i960 and non-goldcap pentium. Lets round this to around $80/lb. That would put the batch at around $12.3k

"Pro + 486 + cyrix + 386" is the most nebulous as the prices vary wildly between the categories. Given the loose overview of the video I'll call this mix ~$80/lb as well. That would make the batch probably around $10.8k

DMD ceramic is always an odd duck since there's often so few of 'em. Going with my estimate of $50/lb, that would make the lot $1.5k

"Other" I'm going to assume is Motorolas, DEC, IDT, etc. These mostly fall under either a goldcap ceramic or misc ceramic. Lets say $60/lb here. That would make the batch ~$5.4k

So our totals:

"AMD CPU" ~$5.8k
"Intel CPU" ~$12.3k
"Pro + 486 + cyrix + 386" ~$10.8k
"DMD" ~$1.5k
"Other" ~$5.4k

Total would be ~$35.8k
Assuming the gold extracted was pure (unlikely) and he had a buyer who was paying spot (not too unreasonable if the gold was pure) that would leave him with ~$20.2k profit minus chemicals, time/labor, and any medical bills from breathing in any of the fumes from the slurry. (I didn't see any respirators in their shadows)

Again these prices are probably on the low side and very outdated.

Were there probably some CPUs that were good/collectable? Absolutely. But we don't know if they were purchased in the state they were shown in the video, or if they were processed (IHS removed, pulverized, etc.)

His gold extraction also leaves a lot potentially lost in the waste product, as there are often gold layers under the processor dies or within the ceramic substrate. These could have easily been pulverized in a hammer/ball mill (or even a rock tumbler/concrete mixer + ball bearings) before chemical separation and probably would have gotten MUCH better yields.


EDIT1: This video was definitely not recorded in the US. You probably wouldn't want to do it this way if you were (I feel like it'd break some environmental laws, especially at this scale... but I'm no expert there.)
The prices overseas may be completely different than here.

[Wasmachineman_NL]

Speaking of gold scrap, is it even worth scavenging old Socket 775 etc CPUs from dead computers?

[cuttingedgecs]

[crazybubba64]